Category: Herper of the week

Each week a “Herper” of the Week is chosen. These individuals come from all sorts of backgrounds but they all have one common interest – “herps” (reptiles and amphibians). Hopefully, you will learn about them and their important work.

The Herper of the Week is Mary Kate O’Donnell, Ph.D candidate at Deban Lab at the University of South Florida. Her Ph.D is focusing on variations in climbing in salamanders in the family Plethodontidae – the Lungless Salamanders.

Each week I select a “Herper” of the Week. These individuals come from all sorts of backgrounds but they all have one common interest – “herps” (reptiles and amphibians). Hopefully, you will learn about them and their important work.

This week’s Herper of the Week is Dr. Cori Richards-Zawacki, associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, leader of RZ Lab, and is the director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology.

The questions her lab tries to answer are how climate and host/pathogen evolution shape the dynamics of wildlife diseases, the effects of changes in climate and landscape on species distributions and diversity, how and when reproductive isolation evolves during speciation, and the natural history and conservation of endangered amphibians.

The goal of Herper of the Week is to highlight people from all walks of life who work with reptiles and amphibians and show their work to others. This week’s Herper of the Week is Jay Manchand. Jay is one of the best amphibian artists around. His website is HerpARTology.com

The goal of Herper of the Week is to highlight people from all walks of life who work with reptiles and amphibians and show their work to others. This week’s Herper of the Week is Dr. David C. Blackburn, curator of amphibians and reptiles at the Florida Museum of Natural History and the head of the Blackburn Lab.

The Blackburn Lab focuses on the diversity, evolution, and natural history of reptiles and amphibians (herps). Most of the work focuses on African species of herps. Former Herper of the Week – Marcel Talla Kouete is a member of the lab. Another project that the lab leads is oVert or openVertebrate, a program that provides free, 3D digital anatomy models to anyone. It is a very cool project.

Each week I select a “Herper” of the Week. These individuals come from all sorts of backgrounds but they all have one common interest – “herps” (reptiles and amphbians). Hopefully, you will learn about them and their important work.

This week’s Herper of the Week is Dr. Helen Meredith, the Executive Director of the Amphibian Survival Alliance (ASA). She earned her Ph.D from the Institute of Zoology (ZSL) and the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent. Her thesis was focused on developing evidence-based conservation decision making practices.

Before becoming the Executive Director of the ASA, she coordinated the EDGE Amphibians initiative at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). EDGE is a global conservation initiative that focuses on threatened species that have unique evolutionary histories. It is a wonderful program.

The goal of Herper of the Week is to highlight people from all walks of life who work with reptiles and amphibians and show their work to others. This week’s Herper of the Week is Steven Allain, a Master’s student at Imperial College of London.

Steven’s work focuses around amphibian diseases and population ecology. One of his current projects is testing the introduced Midwife Toads of the UK for Chytrid Fungus, a deadly amphibian fungal disease. He is also currently the chairman of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Amphibian & Reptile Group (CPARG)

The goal of Herper of the Week is to highlight people from all walks of life who work with reptiles and amphibians and show their work to others. This month, all the Herpers of the Week will be women for Women’s History Month. This week’s Herper is Molly Albecker, Ph.D candidate at East Carolina University in McCoy’s Lab.

Her research focuses on characterizing patterns of local adaptation in amphibians inhabiting saline habitats by determining how phenotypes (behavior, life history, physiology) at different life stages (egg, tadpole, adult) differ across populations.

She earned her Master’s from East Carolina University and her Bacherlor’s at the Mary Washington University. Her Master’s thesis was on the Risk assessment and behavioral choices of larval anurans (Rana sphenocephala).

The goal of Herper of the Week is to highlight people from all walks of life who work with reptiles and amphibians and show their work to others. This month, all the Herpers of the Week will be women for Women’s History Month. This week’s Herper is Dr Amanda Zellmer, Assistant Professor of Biology at Occidental College. She leads the Occidental College Computational Biology Lab.

Dr. Amanda Zellmer’s research focuses on the utility and development of computational methods for studying spatial ecological and evolutionary processes, particularly in the context of conservation biology. Her work usually deals with amphibians but has done research on other animals. She also is very interested in urban salamanders and showing that their is wildlife in LA.

She earned her Bachelors of Science from the University of Wisconsin. She earned her Ph.D from the University of Michigan.

The goal of Herper of the Week is to highlight people from all walks of life who work with reptiles and amphibians and show their work to others. This month, all the Herpers of the Week will be women for Women’s History Month. This week’s Herper is Priya Nanjappa. She is a Program Manager at the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies and also the National Coordinator for Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC).

At the Association of Fish & Wildlife, Priya directs reptile and amphibian conservation and invasive species policy. She is also the leader of the Response Working Group of the Bsal Task Force, an international team that works to stop the invasive amphibian pathogens from killing all the amphibians.

The goal of Herper of the Week is to highlight people from all walks of life who work with reptiles and amphibians and show their work to others. This month, all the Herpers of the Week will be women for Women’s History Month. This weeks Herper is Jenny Gaines, park ranger and naturalist with the Georgia DNR.

Besides just being an awesome park ranger, she is also the founder of Reptile Quest,a group that puts on educational shows about reptiles. They do shows around Savannah, Georgia so book them.

She is also a popular youtuber where she shares facts about animals and shows off her own pets. Her channel name is Jenny Gaines.